Civil War Washington

One of eight cases observed at the FREEDMAN'S HOSPITAL, Washington, D. C., during 1865, 1866, and 1867.⃰ In none of them were the patients soldiers. Five are of interest as examples of tubercular ulceration of the intestines. Besides the specimens from these cases, several other examples of tubercular ulceration of the intestines are preserved at the Museum, which were obtained from autopsies of colored women who died at the same hospital during the period mentioned. . . . In all of them extensive tubercular deposits were found in the lungs and other organs. Most of the specimens are portions of the ileum with tubercular ulcers of the mucous membrane and miliary tubercles on the peritoneal surface opposite:

CASE 868.—William Cole; age 45; admitted June 22, 1867. Chronic diarrhœa. The patient was debilitated, his appetite poor and digestion impaired. He had suffered from pleurisy a short time before admission. Died, July 20th. Autopsy ten hours after death: Rigor mortis well marked; height five feet ten inches; weight 114 pounds. Pleuritic adhesions existed over the entire external surface of the right lung, the lobes of which were interadherent; there was a melanotic nodule in the middle lobe and some congestion of the lower lobe; slight adhesions were also observed between the lobes of the left lung, and there were a few small melanotic nodules in its lower lobe. The heart was normal; all its cavities contained clots. Forty-five ounces of straw-colored serum were found in the abdominal cavity. All the abdominal viscera were glued together by firm old peritoneal adhesions. The mesentery and the mesocolon were œdematous. The liver exhibited intralobular congestion, and there was a cicatrix on the upper surface of its right lobe. The spleen was dark-red, its capsule easily detached, its Malpighian bodies prominent. The stomach was healthy. The small intestine pale. The mucous membrane of the colon was ulcerated. The sigmoid flexure of the colon extended transversely across the sacro-lumbar articulation into the right iliac fossa, the extreme point of the bend being firmly attached to the cæcum; the mesocolon corresponded in its attachment to this abnormal position. The kidneys presented a number of small superficial cysts.—Hospital Steward D. S. Lamb. [No. 891, Medical Section, Army Medical Museum, is from this case. The specimen is a portion of the thickened colon with follicular ulcers, some of which have extended into erosions of moderate size; pseudomembranous shreds hang in fringes from the edges of the ulcers.]

⃰ During this period two of the hospital stewards on duty in the Museum, D. S. Lamb and S. S. Bond, were frequently sent to the Freedman's Hospital for the purpose of making autopsies. A considerable number of specimens illustrative of the diseases of the freedmen were thus obtained.